Ducati GP chassis woes

[YELLOPER1L]

I'm sure all of us are aware that the factory Ducati team have been struggling with feel reportedly due to their 'innovative' carbon chassis. This seems to have been confirmed with the appearance of an aluminium twin spar frame on Rossi's bike at Aragon this weekend.
Given that Ducati's eagerly awaited 1199 Superquadrata reportedly uses the same chassis technology as the GP11 Desmosedici do you think that Ducati might just be a little worried?
I know the GP bike has/had a carbon subframe mounted to the engine and the base 1199 will sport an aluminium one but allegedly the 'R' model will use carbon. I know Ducati don't have a factory WSB team any more but given their current dominance from a privateer team it will be interesting to see whether they will mirror the GP team: utter dominance from Stoner in 2008 on a steel trellis frame to utter crap with Rossi on a carbon item.

Any thoughts?

[URBAN LEGEND]

Rossi will be back on top soon. Stoner is on fire. I know I answered none of your questions.

[YELLOPER1L]

Originally Posted by URBAN LEGEND

Rossi will be back on top soon. Stoner is on fire. I know I answered none of your questions.

Rossi will defo be back next season. Stoner is different class and though I'm not a fan of the man you have to admire the way he wrings the neck of the bike he's on.

Rossi starts from pit lane 10s after the start because he's gone over his engine allocation. He only qualified in 13th anyway so he's not lost much.

[sbs]

Motorcycle chassis design still seems to be a black art; part science, part inspired guesswork, part voodoo.

The Ducati seems to be doing amazingly well in WSBK, but their MotoGP effort has stalled out and they seem to be floundering. Some of it seems to be centered around electronics (much in the same way that BMW is having a hard time in WSBK with their electronics).

The number one thing about going fast on a Motorcycle, or even in a race Car is "feel" and "confidence". You can have the best engine and the best brakes and the best everything else, but without "feel" and "confidence" you are never going to be able to get the best out of your skills.

I had an abject lesson in this area, when I had my 600 HP Porsche 944 Turbo... I spent 3 years working on the engine and suspension and got the Car to where it was pretty good, but the turbo came on so fast that it kept trying to kill me coming out of corners... I changed turbos a few times and ended up with a hybrid setup that made less power, but came on with less of a bang .. I found a suspension setup that I liked and with those changes, suddenly went 3 seconds a lap quicker at Laguna than I had even gone in that Car the week before... Same Car, same tires, less power, but I had confidence getting the Car turned in and fired out of the corners, so I could really push it right to the limit.

I was carrying 11 mph more speed through turn 4 at Laguna by the time I had dialed in the Car.

Confidence and feel... Hard to quantify, hard for the engineers to build it in, because it's such an abstract concept and when you don't have it, even someone like Rossi can't win...

[YELLOPER1L]

Originally Posted by sbs

Motorcycle chassis design still seems to be a black art; part science, part inspired guesswork, part voodoo.

The Ducati seems to be doing amazingly well in WSBK, but their MotoGP effort has stalled out and they seem to be floundering. Some of it seems to be centered around electronics (much in the same way that BMW is having a hard time in WSBK with their electronics).

I disagree about the electronics. I think they use the same package as the rest of the MotoGP grid. BMW are struggling with theirs in WSB because they ate using their own system rather than the paddock standard Magnetti Marelli package. The suggestion from the GP paddock rumour mill is that because Ducati are using a front 'shoebox' subframe mounted to the top of the engine and there is no flex in the chassis when cornering. Cast metals used in engine blocks do not flex in any significant way and it seems to absorb any feedback the suspension and tyres are providing hence there is no feel.
The revision Rossi is using this weekend isn't a full on twin spar frame like the one on our bikes but it's more like it than their previous design. MCN had a photo of a full on 3D model FEA (Finite Element Analysis) of a proper twin spar frame which they got from the Ducati pit at Misano. Perhaps next season they'll be using a Japanese style beam frame next season.